


When The World Falls Away

by CookieDoughMe



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Army AU, Bittersweet, Forgive me I know nothing about army life, Inspired by World War Z, It's a zombie AU but there are no zombies in the fic, M/M, No active Troubles, Zombie AU, brief reference to Evi and canon-typical death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:41:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28529370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookieDoughMe/pseuds/CookieDoughMe
Summary: Inspired by this from Meatloaf’s Bat Out Of Hell: “We gotta make the most of our one night together; when it's over you know, we'll both be so alone.”I started off thinking of this as a crossover with Max Brooks'sWorld War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War- but I don't think it's really faithful or specific enough to that book/universe to qualify as a crossover as such. It's more a case of - take a couple of characters from Haven, strip away the Troubles and put them in a world ravaged by zombies instead.There aren't any zombies in the fic, there is just Duke, and Nathan, some drinks, a room ... and Feelings.
Relationships: Duke Crocker/Nathan Wuornos
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this in February 2019, and actually wrote most of it that year, but for some reason it took me a long time to fill in the gaps and get it finished. And then 2020 happened and (although covid is absolutely NOT the same thing as zombies) writing a setting where a new virus means the world has suddenly changed for the worst hits a bit different now, but there we are.

Private Nathan Wuornos put his kit bag down on the small and shaky folding bed he'd been assigned in what had once been the boardroom for some swanky corporate office. Sparing only the briefest of glances at a poster that had apparently at some point been deemed ‘motivational', he set off back downstairs where his first stop would be the mess. After that, he had been reliably informed that there was a bar of sorts operating in this make-shift barracks. Given that they were two days late arriving and would be shipping out again tomorrow, he intended to make full use of his one remaining night's leave.

The food was like any army food he had ever tasted; bland and uniform. But it was warm, there was plenty of it, and it would keep him full until the next time he could eat, which was more than many people in these previously-United States had access to, so he counted himself lucky. Stomach suitably lined, he walked between the old shops and office buildings of what he supposed was still technically Denver, Colorado. Some buildings were more dilapidated than others. A few almost looked as though they had just closed for the night, others were not much more than burnt out shells. Some still showed the logos of companies and organisations that had once dominated their lives and which now meant nothing.

The room that was acting as a bar looked like it might once have been a sports hall. It was in the middle of the camp; the noisiest space sensibly located furthest from potential zeds. Even so, it was dramatically quieter than any bar he'd ever been in before the near-collapse of civilisation; no music, no TV, no sports commentary on a radio, no jukebox, no pool table. Just people sitting at a ragtag collection of chairs and tables, with an even more disparate collection of drinking vessels in front of them. Behind the biggest table at the far end of the space, a couple of tired-looking people were passing out moonshine from what looked like an old oil drum.

Nathan made his way towards the table-acting-as-a-bar. As he came to a stop to wait his turn, he became aware of the man to his right and even before he’d registered who it was, he knew it was someone he knew; someone he knew from long ago, when zombies had been nothing but a fanciful concept for horror movies. And then the man turned and he saw that it was Duke Crocker, and it was only the slight warning that feeling had given him that stopped him dropping to the floor with surprise.

For a moment they just stared at each other, Duke looking as surprised as he felt. "Duke Crocker," Nathan said eventually. "Should've known you'd still be in one piece." He was aiming for a tone of voice that implied this was an unfortunate discovery, but it wouldn't have fooled anyone.

A moment after he spoke, Duke's face lit up with a grin and he grabbed Nathan in a tight hug, which after only a momentary pause, Nathan returned just as fiercely. When Duke pulled back he held Nathan by the shoulders at arms length as if to get a proper look at him. "It really is you. You don't even look any different."

Nathan scoffed at this obvious lie. He hadn't shaved for at least a week, there were more and more grey hairs dotting his temples (and the scruff on his chin), and there was a long scar running down his right cheek to his jaw from a close run in with some unexpected zeds nearly a year ago. He didn't point any of this out though; he just took a moment to take in Duke's changed appearance. The perpetual ponytail was gone, Duke's hair now cut closer to regulation (or, short enough to stay out of his eyes in a fight, anyway) and he had a few grey hairs of his own. There was the tip of a scar just visible through the open buttons of his shirt, but in truth his face did look much the same; the goatee beard having apparently managed to avoid the demands of regulation grooming when a shaving kit was hard to come by. "Neither do you," Nathan replied.

Duke grabbed two large mugs of moonshine and they took the nearest free table. They toasted the mismatched mugs in their traditional double-clink, and each took a large gulp of the harsh and hastily-brewed alcohol. Duke was used to this particular variety for this was his third night in this bar, and they were both well used to improvised moonshine by now. The vintage label whiskey they might have shared in another life was a distant dream. 

"Well I never thought I'd see you again, I'll be honest," Duke said, sounding almost more surprised by the minute.

"Never thought I'd see  _ anyone _ from Haven again," agreed Nathan.

"Where were you?" Duke asked.  _ Where were you when the world went to shit?  _ he meant, but he didn't need to clarify.

"Training course near Nashville," Nathan replied. "Tried to get back, but … couldn't get through." It was quiet for a moment as they both took another sip of alcohol, remembering those first panicked days, then Nathan added, "Thought they'd be safe on the coast; defensible position. By the time I heard about attacks from the sea, I was in Kansas and people were calling me Private. Couldn't get there."

There was a respectful moment of silence. They both knew that many little coastal towns such as Haven simply didn't exist any more. It hadn't occurred to people at first that zombies would be able to walk across the bottom of the ocean, that they might form herds down there and then make their way back up all at once to decimate unsuspecting fishing villages. But that was what had happened, more than once, and for all that Haven had some advantage in having winters cold enough to slow the zeds down, that didn't help much in summer, and Maine was not too close to any of the safe zones. Nathan knew that Duke knew this; anyone would know this and Duke would have more cause to think about it than most.

Duke forced out an overly-cheery laugh. "Not worried about the Chief are you?" he asked, all faux-incredulity. "He's tough as old boots, he'll be fine. One glare from him would stop any zed dead. If it could even tell he's there in the first place, through the cloud of cigarette smoke."

Nathan laughed in spite of himself.

Slightly more seriously, Duke added, "Haven'll band together. Hold up in the school or something. They'll be OK."

"Yeah," replied Nathan, sounding partially convinced. "I'd go back if I could, even just to find out what happened, but …"

"I'd come with you, for what it's worth, but we're shipping out tomorrow. Heading South."

"Same here, West."

"Both going in the wrong direction," observed Duke.

"Weren't we always?" asked Nathan with that tiny little lopsided smile of his. Duke saw it and for a moment dared to hope for something he knew they didn't deserve. "Remember that beach party?" Nathan asked. "We were, what ... 17? Beginning of summer, music playing round a bonfire, down near Tuwiuwok Bluffs. Someone brought a keg of beer. Everyone got so drunk half the school was grounded for weeks. Seemed like such a big deal at the time."

"Everyone got drunk except us," Duke clarified. He pointed for emphasis, a couple of bruised fingers uncurling from around the chipped mug to reveal the faded logo of some forgotten corporation. In another life, Nathan might have asked how Duke came by the bruise, but in this one any injury that didn't put you at risk of infection or impede your movements wasn't worth mentioning.

"Because you'd had beer before and you didn't go crazy with it," Nathan remembered.

"And you didn't touch a drop because you were under the legal drinking age," Duke said with a kind of exasperated fondness.

"In my defence," Nathan replied, "Chief grounded me for a month just for  _ being there _ . What d’you think he'd've done if I'd puked on his shoes like most everyone else?"

Duke laughed, "Yeah OK," he admitted. "That's fair."

"Good defensive position that, Tuwiuwok Bluffs," Nathan pointed out, breaking his own attempt to change the subject away from Haven's probable destruction. "Some big houses up there on the cliffs, good view out over the road. Maybe they …"

Duke stopped him with a hand, resting bruised fingers carefully over a graze on the back of Nathan's. "Chief's tough as old boots," Duke said again.

"Tried to get back there," Nathan said to his half-full mug. "If it’d been a week earlier. Or later. I tried, I …" 

Duke squeezed Nathan's hand. "He knows that, Nate," he said with feeling.

Nathan turned his hand around so he could squeeze back, then looked up at him. "It's good to see you Duke," he said.

"You too Nate."

If Duke might have expected Nathan to pull his hand away at that point, he was happy to be proved wrong, and Nathan carried on gripping Duke's fingers as he took another gulp of the harsh alcohol in his mug.

"Remember another beach party, round near the lighthouse?"

"No beer that time," Duke acknowledged.

"No. But still, at the end, we …" Nathan paused, didn't seem to know how to say what he wanted to say.

"Most everyone else had gone," Duke offered. "The bonfire was dying down and there was barely even enough light to see you were there."

Nathan ran his thumb back and forth over Duke's hand. "No one else was around and we … I could hardly believe you wanted to but you … We … Remember?" Nathan asked, apparently needing to hear confirmation that what he was thinking of had actually happened, even through his inability to describe it.

Duke remembered though. He remembered how close together they had sat as they looked out to sea. He remembered the way Nathan's shoulder had bumped his as they’d joked around and he remembered how suddenly the mood had changed and they'd been facing each other. And then Nathan's lips had been pressed against his and his arms tight around Nathan's back, and he remembered how in the last of the fading light they had pulled at each other's clothes, kept warm by nothing but the urgent press of the other's skin and the hot puffs of each other's breaths in their ears. "Of course I remember, Nate," said Duke softly. If it hadn't been for the air of slight desperation in Nathan's voice and the way he was still gripping Duke's hand, Duke might have responded to this line of conversation in an entirely different way, but the memory seemed to be making Nathan much more fragile than Duke would have expected.

"We thought no one knew. But then the next day …"

Duke remembered how the high school rumour mill had gone into overdrive.

"I was afraid," Nathan admitted, surprising Duke with this sudden confession. "I-I didn't know what people were going to say. I didn't know, if you were going to … to turn it into a joke. I'm sorry," he said and pulled Duke's hand towards him a little, as thought to emphasise his sincerity.

"So am I," Duke assured him, and he meant it for lots of things: sorry for the aborted almost-relationship that never was; sorry for the fact they’d never talked about it or he'd never tried again; sorry for the way he’d given Nathan plenty of reasons not to trust him before that night, plenty of reasons that Nathan’s fears about Duke's sincerity were not entirely unfounded; sorry that they'd argued so much in the years afterwards.

Nathan nodded, and they accepted each other's apologies. "Never going to see each other again, are we," he said, with a resigned kind of sadness. 

"Maybe not," agreed Duke. It was perhaps not entirely out of the bounds of possibility that they might bump into each other again in another barracks at some point, but the chances were low. Neither of them had any control of where and when they were sent, and even if they had, there was no way for them to let the other know where they would be; they had no means of staying in touch. "But we have tonight," he pointed out, and he turned it into a question as he pulled Nathan's hand back across the table towards him a little way, hope in his voice and something like love in his eyes.

Nathan looked at him in surprise for a moment, hope flaring on his face too as he saw that Duke was serious. And there was no reason for Duke to joke now, no social leverage to be gained by making fun of him, no crowd of so-called friends playing at sticking tacks in his back. And even if there were, they would be marching off in different directions tomorrow, so what did it matter? When one night was all you had, the complications of the past or of what might come next fell away, and things looked simple again. Nathan's gaze fell to Duke's lips for a long moment before he looked back up to Duke's eyes.

"Know somewhere we can go?" Nathan asked. 

Duke's grin was brief but fierce. "Yes," he said. "Yeah I think so."

Nathan didn't ask how he knew about it, or where it was, he just downed the rest of his drink and let himself be led from the bar. 


	2. Chapter 2

They left the relative-noise of the gathering of people behind, and Duke led him out of the building and across the street to the neighbouring office block where his unit had their bunks. He took them up four flights of stairs and they walked through a long open-plan office. Instead of the desks and chairs it had been designed for, the space was now filled with neat rows of the same narrow folding beds that Nathan had left his kit on across the street. Each bed held its own bag or other sign that someone had claimed it, some with an occupant already fast asleep. 

The space was still broken up with the occasional row of filing cabinets that no one had yet found another use for or bothered to move out of the way. As they walked past the last one they found the final section of beds looking thoroughly abandoned. Or rather, looking as though they had never been used at all; regulation blankets neatly folded on each one in their regulation spot. “We got hit a few days out,” Duke said in a low voice. “Fewer of us made it here than they hoped.”

Nathan nodded in the moment of silence this sad news warranted, but his eyes alighted on a doorway at the end of the space. The door itself was gone; probably repurposed into part of the barricade around the camp, or one of the tables in the bar. “What’s through there?” he asked with a nod towards it.

Duke just grinned at him with a glint in his eye and walked on forward. Nathan followed, picking up blankets from the unused beds as he went. Duke got to the doorway first, stuck his head inside for a moment and then stepped back out to pick up the nearest bed, tossing the blanket to Nathan. Nathan frowned at him. The beds were narrow and rickety; fabric stretched over a folding metal frame. They were comfortable enough for one person to sleep on, but completely impractical for anything else - even pushing two of them together didn’t work, and Nathan couldn’t imagine Duke didn’t know that.

“This’ll work a lot better as a barrier if we’re both on the same side of it,” commented Duke. “It’s either this or one of the filing cabinets and they look like more effort to move.” 

Nathan got his meaning then and stepped around him into what turned out to be a fairly decent sized office. He dropped the pile of blankets on the desk and turned to see Duke propping the bed up across the doorway. It served as some indication the room was in use, but wasn’t going to do much to stop anyone who wanted to peer around it. Nathan noticed the pictures hung either side of the door. “Here,” he suggested, taking a blanket from the pile and hooking it first over one picture frame then the other, adding an extra layer to the barrier. There were some gaps, but it would deter any casual glances and there weren't likely to be many people passing by in any case.

Duke turned around and took a closer look at the office. “Let’s move the desk up against the door as well,” he suggested. So they moved the chair and the desk, and shifted a filing cabinet around to leave all of the free space at the far end of the room.

Nathan glanced out of the window where the filing cabinet had been. When this office had been in its original use, the view would have been a canvas of different coloured points of light: other office windows, shops and bars, street lights, traffic on the roads, apartment buildings, maybe some houses in the distance. The view would have stretched for miles. Now, there was hardly anything; some muted lighting immediately below them, a few dim and flickering points along the barrier around the edge of the camp, and then nothing. The darkness stretched to the horizon, broken only by the moonlight glinting off a distant patch of water. Nathan didn't comment on it, didn't stop to think on it; this was the world now, and no amount of wanting would make it otherwise.

Duke was spreading out the blankets that Nathan had collected, one by one on top of each other: practical army grey blankets on a practical office grey carpet. There were enough of them it actually took him a while and as he kept a couple aside to act as an actual blanket on top of the makeshift mattress, Nathan thought that he had spent nights in much worse places in recent years. So much about the world had changed since they had last seen each other. The concept of _zombie_ had gone from an amusing Halloween joke to a very real and present danger that had killed billions upon billions of people and virtually destroyed civilisation across the entire planet. For Duke and Nathan, their lives were no longer their own; they went where they were told, when they were told, and they fought how they were told because it was the best chance they had to help stop the extinction of the human race. It was also the best chance they had for some level of relative safety and comfort for themselves. They were the lucky ones after all; they were still in one piece and they were still themselves. Tomorrow they would have no choice but to march out in different directions, but for now; they had tonight, they had this room, and they had each other. And they were both well aware of how lucky that made them.

"Never thought you'd be a soldier," commented Nathan with a smile, watching Duke spread out the last blanket.

"You and me both," replied Duke with feeling as he stood up to face Nathan. "But then who knew zombies would turn out to be real? I was in Seattle, visiting ..." an image of Evi flashed unbidden across his mind's eye, laughing and incredulous moments before they’d realised the rumours about zombies were actually true, "... an old friend."

"Heard it was bad there," offered Nathan in sympathy to the details he didn’t know. 

"Bad doesn't cover it. Even before the zeds got in … Civilisation fell apart so quickly just at the news. People looting, killing for no reason, people attacking people, doing whatever they wanted. Grocery store shelves went bare so quick, transport network broke down completely. Then the virus reached the city too and it just …" He closed his eyes against the flood of images that he tried on a daily basis not to think about: piles of bodies everywhere, half of them still moving; Evi lying dead in his arms; the world turned to chaos in a way he had not been prepared for. "I almost died a dozen different times those first few weeks and then it started to look like if I didn't get bitten or shot I might just starve to death instead. The army were offering something resembling a bed and at least one half-decent meal a day to anyone who could walk and fire a gun - it seemed like a good deal at the time."

Nathan nodded, recognising the truth of it.

"Still does to be honest," Duke finished.

"Good people in your unit?" Nathan asked.

Duke smiled then, pushing memories of Seattle to one side. "Yes," he said, voice turning lower, "but I don't think you came up here with me and moved a bunch of furniture round just to discuss army life."

Nathan looked around them as though realising for the first time that they were in fact alone. It was a privacy that was fragile. There wasn't really much to stop anyone pushing the blanket over the door aside out of curiosity, or barging in to order them back to their own bunks, or stumbling drunkenly in looking for their own space. There was even an outside change of zeds getting in here if the camp perimeter got breached. This space they had was fragile and temporary, but for now it was theirs. Nathan looked around the room, from the blanket over the doorway to the pile on the floor between their feet and then his gaze flitted to Duke, from his face right the way down his body to his feet and then slowly back up again, lingering a couple of times on the way back up to Duke's gently-smiling face. When they were finally eye to eye again Nathan answered, "True."

"So, what _are_ you going to do now you're here?" Duke asked, sounding genuinely curious. Duke's voice had gone soft and low, raw and intense; a sound that pulled to Nathan somewhere beneath the pit of his stomach. Nathan stepped around the blankets until they stood directly in front of each other. He let his eyes wander over Duke's face again before resting on his lips. When he moved forward for a kiss, Duke met him halfway, their lips soft and warm against each other for the first time in 20 years.

In the stillness of their stolen room, they wrapped their arms softly around each other's backs and stood there kissing for a long time. Their movements were soft with occasional brief bursts of speed that threatened to turn into something else; something frantic, urgent, desperate, almost violent in their desire for each other. But they both held back from that to savour the moment instead - to savour each and every slow and soft movement and moment through the only time together they would ever have.

_In a quiet and dimly lit room, two tall, slim bodies press tight against each other, pulled close by each other’s hands and their own desire._

_Four storeys below them, drinkers start leaving the bar with a necessary carefulness and quietness that belies the amount of liquor they have drunk._

_In the space between an empty window and a re-located desk, two men concentrate on the press of each other’s hands and the shape of the body in front of them, focusing on the moment, committing it to memory._

_On beds throughout the building, weary men and women lie down to sleep, holding their own precious memories safe._

_In the fragile privacy of an abandoned office, bruised fingers press against a scarred cheek, a grazed hand runs over a scarred chest._

_At the perimeter of the camp, the soldiers on watch keep their voices low and the lighting dim, watching and carefully listening for the threat that could easily overwhelm the defences if conditions turned against them._

_In the space created by re-arranged furniture, lips feel, tongues taste, and hands explore the other, the rest of the world forgotten._

After a while, Duke and Nathan stepped apart for a moment to pull off their boots and the rest of their clothing, then joined each other in the pile of blankets - enough underneath them to offer some cushion to the hardness of the floor, enough above them to hold off the chill of the night.

For a moment they lay side by side, bluer-than-blue and warm brown eyes studying each other. They each started to say something, then both thought the better of it. What was there to say? What could words possibly do against 20 years of absence? What difference could a sentence or two make in the face of 30 years of mis-understandings? Now more than ever they lived in a world of action and their actions in this moment, right here and now, meant more to both of them than any mere words ever could. And so, their eyes fell to each other’s lips again and they kissed, soft and tender shifting slowly to deep and full.

_A pile of grey army blankets traps body heat against two pairs of long slim legs tangled tight together._

_In the quiet stillness of a room that isn’t really theirs, two sets of hands reach for each other and find their way down the other’s body, learning the feel of chest and ribs, travelling on down to the hot urgent press of desire close against their hip._

_Outside the fragile security offered by the guarded perimeter, the dark world is full of more death and loss than anyone ever thought possible, and it holds few others so lucky as the two men who roll together between borrowed blankets on a cold and unforgiving floor._

_In the stolen space of a dis-used office, lips part softly on a moan of pleasure and eyes flutter closed on a gasp of ecstasy, the sounds mingling in the otherwise-empty air._

_Between the blankets, hands reach deliberately for each other and fingers unconsciously curl in pleasure._

_Two hearts pump blood faster and further around bodies that alternately tense and relax with the ebb and flow of the sensations they share._

_A hand runs across ribs, around to the small of a back and down where it squeezes ass to be rewarded with a gasp._

_A tongue flicks against a nipple, tasting skin and drinking down the sound of eager moans._

_Fingers, grazed and bruised, tired, strong and eager, reach for each other to curl tight around hard and hungry skin, pulsing towards each other as hands move slowly in time, eyes studying each other through every last moment of the desire, pleasure and climax that they share._

Nathan and Duke watched each other in the dim light that was just enough to see by, soaking up the sight of their own feelings mirrored on the other’s face. They kept their movements soft and slow, both wanting the moment to last and to fix it in their memory so they could carry it with them. In a different setting it might almost have been called romantic. They learnt every inch of the other’s skin; older and more scarred now than the last time they had touched, the story of the harshness of the world written on their bodies and faces and hands.

Tomorrow they would both be moving across the country in different directions, neither of them knowing or having any control over where they would go next. There was no way for them to arrange to meet, no way to know if they ever could see each other again, no way for them to even stay in touch. They would have no memento of the other; no photo of happier times, no video clip or old voicemail message to replay, no jewellery or rings to exchange, not even a locket to hold a lock of hair. Their own carefully-tended memories would be all that they had. 

Once this night was done they would march out across a broken country, fighting for their own lives and the lives of their friends, fighting to hold the line of the remains of civilisation and the future of the human race. They would spend their days fighting, their evenings (when they were lucky) drinking, and their nights asleep alone (surrounded by their brothers and sisters in arms, but alone), and through every moment of all of it they would keep safe and hold close the memory of the precious, perfect night they had spent with the love of their life. They were both of them the ‘one who got away’; once as insecure teenagers because they let opportunity slip through their fingers, and now again because the world contrived to pull their hands apart, no matter the strength of their grip.

But still they knew, even though they had lost so much, and were missing out on so much, still they knew they were luckier in this moment than millions of people who were right now fighting for their lives, mourning loved ones, shivering cold and alone, or wondering whether they would have food and shelter tomorrow. They had the luck to be alive, safe and warm and well fed, but more than that they had the astronomical luck that had put them in the same barracks on the same day, and in the same bar at the same time, able to talk, able to tell each other how they felt, able to admit to their failures and take the chance to act on their desires.

For Duke and Nathan their lives were broken, just as the world was. But by the standards of this broken world, the two of them were lucky indeed.


	3. Chapter 3

Somewhere near dawn they lay, relatively still and quiet, fingers running softly over each other’s skin.

"I wish…" began Nathan, but he didn't really know what he wanted to say. As he paused, he felt Duke tense. Wishing for things in a world like this was not … sensible. Everyone wished the world was different - getting into specifics about it was unlikely to help anyone's mood. There were a lot of things that could have been different for Duke and Nathan even before the world went to crap, but they could never go back to before, never undo the things they had said, or take the chances that had been left untaken. All they had was this moment - and to think beyond that? There was a general feeling among most people that to do so was not entirely sane. "... we had more time," Nathan finished, and he felt Duke relax a little.

"We'll always want more time," Duke said. "The trick is to be thankful for the time we have."

Nathan nodded, blinked away the beginnings of a tear, and reached forwards to kiss him again.


	4. Chapter 4

Some hours later, in the full light of the morning, Nathan pulled the blanket off the doorway and shifted the bed out of the way. He paused before he stepped through into the space beyond their little room. "If the world ever starts to recover..." he began uncertainly, still looking out away from Duke. "If I get the chance, I'll be heading back to Haven," he said firmly. Duke waited, aware that Nathan had not finished speaking, and Nathan turned back to look at Duke then. "Maybe I'll see you there," Nathan said. It wasn't a question, and he was not foolish enough to ask for a promise that would very likely be impossible for Duke to keep no matter how much he might want to. It was nothing more than a statement of intent, a vague hope for some unknown future point in time.

Duke returned his gaze and nodded once; firm, decisive. "Maybe you will at that," he said. It wasn't a promise either. In a world such as this, neither of them would be so foolish as that. It wasn't a promise and it wasn't a plan. It was nothing really other than a thought, a possibility, a shared faint hope. 

It wasn't a promise, but it was something. 

It was all they had. 

And it would have to be enough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, this was where the fic ended.  
> Then, there were two possibilities for a part two.   
> One possibility would have been closer to the Haven canon finale ... but that was far too angsty to write.   
> The other possibility continues more in the same bittersweet feel as the fic so far and is here now as the final two chapters.


	5. Chapter 5

It had taken many more years than he had hoped it would, but Nathan was finally back in Haven, such as was left of it. It was a two hour walk from the nearest sign of anything resembling civilisation, and the people there had told him not to come. They had warned him that there was nothing and no one left in Haven anymore. The walk had been hard on his bad knee, and the people he’d spoken to had been right. But he was still glad he had come.

He limped down what he thought had once been Main Street, but it was hard to be sure with so many buildings damaged and after so many years had passed. He didn't expect to find anyone still living here, but maybe there would be some signs of what had happened. Maybe he would be able to tell whether the residents he remembered had been able to make a stand, or what had happened to law enforcement here, or the fate of the old Chief of Police. 

He turned his head this way and that, directing his good eye to things he almost recognised. Was that the old Rust Bucket? Was this here the remains of the Herald? It hurt his battered old heart to think of Vince and Dave trying to report on the progress of the zombie apocalypse, bickering about headlines and stubbornly sticking to their desks to the detriment of their own safety. Against his will he imagined the Chief trying to persuade them to leave for somewhere safer, but where would that have been? The station perhaps? Or maybe the Everwood; the half-built hotel complex that had been doomed by shifting economic realities even before zombies became real? Or even some isolated house out on the edge of town, protected by the cliffs at its back and with a good view of the approaching road? He had no idea. He didn't know when the plague had reached Haven, or how much information about how to fight the zombies had been known when it did. Were Garland and the others fighting blind? Or had they known what they needed to do?

He limped on, ignoring the pain in his knee. He thought he knew where he was now, and he took a right turn to test the theory; at the end of the next road the view of the harbour would tell him. Surely even the zombie apocalypse couldn't have affected the layout of the islands or the shape of the coast. But he didn't even have to get that far because as he turned the corner he saw the old Police Station; that strong, square brick building still standing. Not only still standing and in good condition but fortified, surrounded by defences and it looked to Nathan like they'd done a good job. Even as he got closer and looked more carefully, there was nothing he could see to do better. That was a good sign, he thought. That meant that the people of Haven had had a fighting chance. Maybe this was where they'd made their final stand.

As he got closer he could see that the fortifications hadn't been maintained. Everything looked old and fragile (well, he knew how that felt) and it was clear no one had been here in a long time. He picked his way through the dilapidated defences with ease and walked along as far as the steps in front of the main door. He stood there on the sidewalk for a long time, listening, hoping to hear something even with his bad hearing, but no sounds came.

He turned around and sat down on the bottom step. He would have to go inside at some point, but not yet. For now he just wanted to enjoy the fact that he was here, and to hold on to the idea that his father might not have died alone in the first days of the war.


	6. Chapter 6

Nathan wasn't sure how long he sat there on the police station steps, but at some point he heard something, coming from his right side - whatever was making that noise was coming at him from the side he could no longer see, but even before he turned his head, something about the sound told him this was friend not foe. 

So he turned to look and there, against all sense and logic, stood Duke Crocker, recognisable even through the shifting years and the impact of the many battles and fights that had obviously filled them. For a long moment they just stared at each other, taking in the various wounds and scars, the grey and thinning hair, and the other changes that age and time had made to them.

After a while, Nathan spoke, "Made it then," he said, almost a question. 

"Heard about some crazy old man determined to visit Haven one last time. Folks in town said maybe we could talk some sense into each other."

"Might be a bit late for that," Nathan replied.

Duke stepped forward and, struggling with what looked like an old hip injury, lowered himself slowly down onto the step next to Nathan. 

Nathan put his hand on Duke's knee and they turned to look at each other.

"Been inside yet?" Duke asked.

Nathan shook his head,  _ No _ . "Want some lunch?" Nathan asked, reaching for his backpack beside him.

"You bring enough for two?" Duke asked, slightly surprised.

"Brought enough for a week," Nathan told him. "Wasn't sure what I’d find."

For a long while they were quiet, then Nathan was the first to speak again, "It's good to see you Duke," he said. 

Duke looked down and put his hand on Nathan’s, squeezing their fingers tight together. For a moment he didn’t speak, and when he did his voice cracked slightly with something more than just age. “It’s good to see you too Nate,” he replied. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all for this one. I hope you enjoyed!


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